She did not look at Sam. She took two awkward steps toward the stove as her tongue sank beneath her lower lip, and then, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, she spat a mixture of saliva and snuff right onto the belly of the stove. “Yo’ mama can’t be helped,” she said. “Ain’t nobody in the world can help yo’mama.” With that, she turned her back to us and left our house. The gob of snuff sizzled in her wake and became a permanent stain on the stove. For some reason, I felt it was a stain on me as well. That stain, scorching into the iron, held me captivated as
